Wait, What?
by aliciameade
Summary: Tumblr concept: Domestic Bechloe where Beca accidentally kisses Chloe on her way to work because it feels normal to do so.
1. Chapter 1

"Hey Chlo, get a move on or the truck's leaving without us!"

Beca waits in the doorway of the Bellas' house, hollering for the redhead to pick up the pace.

"I'm coming, I'm coming, I'm coming," floats back down to her followed by the rapid thumping of feet on stairs, in the rhythm that Beca would know belongs to Chloe even if she didn't know it was Chloe coming down because Chloe was the only one in the house. "Sorry," Chloe says, a little breathless as she almost slides to a stop at the entrance, holding the cork board that lived on Beca's bedroom wall. "I was doing a final round and you forgot this!"

"Shit, thanks," Beca says as she takes it from her, numerous pins still holding Polaroids and Post-Its and fortunes to it. "We gotta go. All the lights are off?"

"Check."

"Everything unplugged except for the stuff that shouldn't be unplugged?"

"Check."

"You left everyone's house keys in the drawer and told Emily where to find them?"

"Check, check, and double check!" Chloe says with a smile.

"Okay, lock it up. Let's go." Beca steals one last look over Chloe's shoulder at the house she's called home for the last three years. She's certain that she made more memories there than the rest of her life combined. She certainly made her best friends there. She was even moving in with one of them, something she never would have been able to see herself do when she was younger. She watches Chloe lock the front door and offers a sympathetic smile when Chloe turns back with tears in her eyes.

The moving truck is idling alongside the curb, waiting to follow Chloe the two hundred and fifty miles to Nashville where Beca has a job waiting for her at a satellite Residual Heat studio and Chloe has a Master's in Music Education program to begin in three months at Belmont University.

Beca carefully sets the cork board in Chloe's backseat and then plops into the passenger seat to buckle up. She watches Chloe talk to the truck driver, pointing down the street and then gesturing to her phone, and Beca laughs to herself.

"You know, they have our address. They can probably use that new-fangled GPS technology to find it if they lose us on the freeway."

"I'm just trying to be helpful," Chloe chirps as she eases onto the road to lead them off the Barden University campus.

* * *

"Hey, so, the cable guy is supposed to come tomorrow at 9am, which means it'll probably be like 2pm. Can you be home for that?"

Chloe looks up from where she's parked in front of her laptop at the kitchen counter going through photos. "Sure, no prob."

They're mostly unpacked, though Beca's finding that they were so ingrained in their ways at the Bellas' house that they're both struggling to find and establish new habits. So far, Chloe's "office" has been in the kitchen and Beca's been walking around from room to room with her laptop trying to figure out where she feels most comfortable.

Her bedroom is okay, she finally decides. Chloe seems to whine a lot about hers, saying it's too bright in the morning and too cold in the evening when the air conditioning is blasting to keep the rest of the house cool in the oppressive southern summer heat.

It's not really all that surprising when Beca wakes up a week later to see Chloe asleep next to her in her bed. Which is a habit that establishes itself immediately.

Somehow in their four years of friendship, Chloe convinced her that cuddling was not only okay for platonic friends, but actually pretty comforting. Apparently she'd been wrong all those years shunning human contact.

Or at least, it was comforting when it was Chloe.

So she curls into Chloe's side, slipping her arm through triangle of space made by Chloe's hand resting on her own stomach as she sleeps to rest her fingertips against the side of her neck. And Beca doesn't really think about it; it just _is_. She stopped thinking about it two years ago.

* * *

"Hey, did you buy new K-cups on your way home?" Beca asks as she slides the drawer closed under the coffee maker that usually houses their collection.

"Shoot, no, I forgot. I'm sorry." Chloe's still using the kitchen as an office area despite the house actually _having_ an office, and the counter space is almost completely taken up by her textbooks and notes.

"I don't ask for much, you know," Beca teases as she settles for a soda from the fridge instead.

Chloe raps her knuckles against her skull a few times, obviously frustrated with herself. "I know, I know."

And Beca can't help but smile at her, because she is so frazzled and distracted and buried in her homework that it's actually kind of adorable, so she finds it in her heart to forgive her. "It's okay. I'll get it tomorrow."

"Sorry. Thanks, babe."

* * *

"Hey, did you know I work for a total jackass?" Beca says, pissed off as she slams the door behind her.

Chloe's sitting at the kitchen counter and looks up from her computer screen where Beca knows she's cramming for finals, pushing her glasses off her face to sit atop her head. She started wearing glasses for reading earlier in the year, the hours spent studying and reading all semester taking their toll on her vision. Beca kind of wishes she would put them back into their proper place; Chloe looks nice in them.

"What happened?"

"He just doesn't get it." She flops onto the couch, letting her head fall back to stare at the ceiling. "I'm working my fucking ass off and he's acting like I'm not trying." She feels a kink in her neck and rubs at it, rolling her head from side to side.

"Scootch." Chloe's suddenly climbing onto the couch, standing on it and nudging her foot under Beca's backside to push her off the cushions and onto the floor so she can slide into place behind Beca.

Beca settles on the floor and feels Chloe sit down in her just-vacated spot, and a moment later Chloe's legs frame her upper arms and feet take up residence in her lap as her warm hands make contact with her neck. How Chloe's hands are always _so_ warm Beca's never been able to figure out, because Chloe's spent the entirety of their friendship complaining of being cold and using Beca as her personal space heater. But she doesn't mind and stops thinking about the 'why' because Chloe's warm hands are prodding and massaging her neck and squeezing the tension out of her shoulders in the way that always makes Beca's eyes slip closed.

"He's a butthead," Chloe says, making Beca smile, and then whimper as she works her thumb into the knot in Beca's neck.

"Yeah," Beca agrees weakly. She knows Chloe will keep up the massage for as long as Beca engages just enough to keep the conversation flowing.

"You have the best ear in that place. He'll come around; you'll see."

Beca hums and moves her hands off her knees to rest them over Chloe's ankles. Her fingers itch to move and she finally gives in, trailing them along the bottom of one of Chloe's feet. She feels her foot twitch and tense up and the quiet huff of laughter behind her and she does it again but less tickly and she feels Chloe relax and resume her work along Beca's shoulders. And she figures it's really the least she can do, since Chloe already has her on Cloud 9, so she presses her thumbs into the arch of Chloe's foot.

* * *

"Hey, Chloe, my meeting got canceled. Wanna go check out the new _Star Wars_ finally?"

She smiles as Chloe bounces across the room to her, nearly jumping into her arms as she tackles Beca in a hug. "Can we?!"

Beca holds up her phone which is still displaying the movie times for the cinema in the nearby shopping complex. "I already bought the tickets, so, yes. Starts in 45. Let's get going so we can stop at the store and get snacks to smuggle in."

Chloe squeals again and presses a kiss to Beca's cheek and then she's scampering up the stairs to her bedroom where Beca can hear doors slamming and water running and then she's floating back down the stairs having added an oversized cardigan to her person - since she was always cold at the movies, of course - and she's in the car before Beca even has the door locked.

At the movie they get situated. Chloe always sits to Beca's right so Beca's left hand is free for her snacks or drink or what have you, because her right inevitably, without fail, always ends up trapped in Chloe's. "Trapped" is perhaps not the best word as it implies a desire to be set free, which is really quite the opposite. "Cradled" is perhaps a better descriptor. Halfway through the previews Chloe drops her hand to flip the armrest between them up and out of the way so she can lean on Beca as she tugs her closer by the resumed grip on her hand.

"Chilly in here," Chloe says when Beca nudges her with her elbow teasingly.

* * *

"Hey, Beca, you're going to be late!"

"No I'm not!" Beca yells from her room where she's scrambling to change clothes on more time. Her boss set up an interview with a major artist's representation, and despite having decided on her outfit days ago, she's second guessing everything from her shirt to her shoes.

She finally gives up and goes with what she'd originally put on and flies down the stairs, heart skipping a beat when she almost misses a step.

"Tick tock!" Chloe says from her post at the front door that she's holding open, Beca knows, to save a precious few extra seconds.

"I know, I know!" she says, grabbing her bag off the couch and her keys out of Chloe's hand.

"Knock 'em dead," Chloe says.

"Thanks, babe," Beca says, pressing a quick kiss to Chloe's lips and flying out the door and into her car.

A squeaky "Love you!" follows her out the door.

Her mind is racing and her palms are sweating and she's freaking out a tad about this interview and of _course_ she hits the first red light on their street after almost squealing the tires in the driveway.

She feels her stomach drop a moment later and her fingertips fly to her lips, eyes going wide. She looks at herself in her rearview mirror as though her reflection holds the answer to _what the fuck did I just do?!_

Her phone rings as the light turns green and she sees Chloe's name pop up on the dashboard display, and her stomach jumps from her feet to her throat and then settles in its proper place, only to do a backflip. She presses the TALK button on her steering wheel and takes a breath.

"Chlo, I'm so sor -"

"It's okay!" Chloe's voice fills the entire space in the car. "We'll talk about it when you get home. Just wanted to wish you luck. Not that you need it."

"Thanks," Beca says with a weak laugh, still a little in shock over realizing she literally just kissed her best friend. On the mouth. As she was running off to work.

"Oh, hey, Beca?"

"Yeah?"

"I hope that wasn't an accident. Okay, bye!"

The line goes dead, leaving Beca in silence. She merges onto the freeway, thinking the whole drive to the studio until she's finally pulling into the parking garage.

She looks at herself in the mirror again, smiling. "It wasn't."


	2. Chapter 2

Beca desperately wishes she hadn't just kissed her best friend.

Not because she regrets it; not at all.

But rather, because it's literally ALL she can think about in this interview which could _literally_ make or break her future career, and she keeps saying things like, "I'm sorry, can you repeat that?" and "Yes, that sounds wonderful," without having any idea to what she's agreeing. Instead, she wants to rush home and talk to Chloe.

She also wants to rush home and kiss Chloe, which is definitely not an emotion she's ever felt before today. It's not unwelcome, but it's different.

It's also why she gets pulled over for speeding on her way home. She'd never gotten a speeding ticket in her life, but of course, today's the day. She keeps to the speed limit the rest of the drive after that, but actually runs, she _runs_ from her car to the house, but her hand freezes on the doorknob.

Because she realizes that everything in her life is about to change. For better or worse, she has no way of knowing. She also realizes that she doesn't actually know what it is she's going to say. She hopes Chloe will do most of the talking like she always does, but something tells her this is not a conversation she can, or should, stay silent for.

She fully expects Chloe to be waiting for her, sitting in the armchair in the living room like a therapist and invite her in to take a seat on the couch to have a serious discussion.

Instead, when she opens the door, Chloe's in her usual spot in the kitchen, hunched over a textbook with her computer next to her. Her glasses are on, which Beca always likes, and she's wiggling a pink highlighter between her fingers as she reads. The motion stops when Beca closes the door behind her, and Beca thinks maybe her heart stops a little, too.

"Hey, how'd it go?" Chloe asks, smiling as she looks up from her book.

"I got a speeding ticket." She knows that's not what Chloe's really referring to, but it's a good way to delay the inevitable.

"What! Beca." Chloe pauses, and Beca can see the mischief sweep through her face clear as day, but instead of a teasing comment, she clarifies. "I meant the interview."

"Uh, fine, I think?" is her proffered answer.

"That well, huh?" Chloe says with a little smirk, and Beca has the sudden, blinding visualization of kissing the smirk right off her face. She watches Chloe take her glasses off and set them on her textbook and has to physically bite her tongue to ask her to leave them on. "Are you going to come in, or are you just going to stand in the entryway all night?"

Beca shakes her head, trying to snap out of it. "Oh, right." She takes a few quick steps through the living room to the kitchen and yanks the refrigerator open, taking a second to appreciate the blast of cool air as she pulls a bottle of water off the pyramid of them on bottom shelf. She lets the fridge close and leans back against it, having to work to hold Chloe's gaze, which feels particularly more intense this afternoon than usual, as she cracks open the bottle. "Studying?" she asks, gesturing at Chloe with her bottle.

"How'd ya know?"

"Wild guess."

"Smart cookie."

Just as Beca thinks she's getting her druthers back in line, Chloe decides to stretch her arms over her head and then behind her back, and it's not that Beca was looking - _she wasn't_ \- but she suddenly has to fight to tear her eyes away from the vee of bare skin that shows up when the stretch pulls Chloe's shirt open further where it's unbuttoned.

And Beca thinks it's all so _weird_. She's seen Chloe stretch a thousand times. She's seen her in far more revealing clothing. She's seen her in _no_ clothing - a memory that suddenly makes her throat dry up. She takes another swig of water, using the action to pull her eyes off Chloe as nonchalantly as possible. And yeah, it's all so _weird_ because literally nothing about Chloe has changed in the last four hours, but Beca feels like she's the one wearing glasses. Like someone strolled by and shoved a pair of novelty X-Ray vision glasses onto her face and Chloe went from Chloe to _Chloe: In Technicolor_.

"Hungry?"

Beca notices Chloe's directing the question at her, and tries to blink away the X-Ray vision. "Kind of."

"Good. I ordered pizza."

Beca forces a tight-lipped smile across the table. She knows she's being weird, but she doesn't know what else to do.

"Beca," Chloe starts, and then she's standing, and _oh God_ she's walking toward her. Right at her. Into her personal space. And pauses right in front of her, and she's close enough that Beca can smell her moisturizer. But all she does is pat Beca's cheek and smile. "Relax." She keeps walking until she spins and falls backward onto the couch, taking up the entire thing. "Are you a magnet?"

The question catches her off guard, sure she misheard. "What?"

"I said, are you a magnet?"

Beca knows it as a terrible pick-up line, the obvious follow-up being, 'Because I'm attracted to you.' But she can't imagine Chloe being so unsophisticated, at least not at this particular time. "I don't get it."

"You've been stuck to that fridge for like five minutes."

"Oh," she says, and begrudgingly parts ways with the cool stainless steel that was doing wonders to keep her body temperature down.

"Come out here."

Beca's heart feels like it might pop right out of her chest any moment, but she forces herself into motion anyway, shuffling to the other room. She blinks hard, trying and failing to get rid of her new, weird non-beer beer goggles, especially with the way Chloe's sprawling on the couch in a way that is completely casual and yet somehow extremely attractive. Beca's unsure where to go, hesitating at the arm of the couch by Chloe's feet, and she finally decides to make for the chair in the corner when Chloe's leg swings out and a foot catches her at the knee.

"Sit." Chloe points at the floor in front of the couch.

Her first instinct is to protest a command to sit on the floor, but suddenly she's sitting cross-legged on the carpet, facing Chloe, with her bottle of water in her lap, which kind of feels like her lifeline at the moment - something to hold on to.

Chloe wiggles until she's on her side and they're face to face, and Beca has to lean back a little, feeling like the air between them is too thick to breathe.

"Well?" Chloe asks, and Beca can see the excitement and interest in her crystal blue eyes, and she wonders how exactly it's even humanly possible for someone to have eyes that beautiful.

"Well what?" she asks dumbly.

"We said we'd talk about it when you got home." Chloe waves her hand at her. "You're home."

"Oh, right," she says like she totally forgot about it. She didn't. Obviously. She scratches the back of her neck and leaves her hand there for a few seconds, gripping it. Her palms are sweating. "So, um…"

"Bec, _relax_ ," Chloe repeats and adds a warm smile.

She nods and takes a deep breath, returning a tight smile as she exhales. "Okay. So...that happened." All Chloe does is raise her eyebrows at her, and Beca realizes her earlier prediction was coming true: she was actually going to have to speak. She takes another breath and drops her hand from her neck back to her lap, where she has to consciously stop herself from wringing her hands together. "I didn't mean to." She sees Chloe's excitement fade a little, and the thought that Chloe could maybe be _disappointed_ was...interesting. But she doesn't want Chloe to be disappointed. "No, no I don't mean it that way." She starts to reach out to touch Chloe's arm out of habit but she stops herself, and Chloe seems to notice but doesn't say anything.

"What I mean is...I didn't do it on purpose. I...I wasn't thinking." It's hard to tell, but it seems like maybe a bit of mirth is returning to Chloe's eyes, which she finds encouraging. "It just...happened. I guess it...felt...normal? To do?" Chloe's smiling at her now, and Beca's seriously considering figuring out a way to crawl out of her own skin. "Okaaaaay, you go."

"Well," Chloe starts, and she's positively grinning now. "It certainly surprised me."

"Sorry," Beca says while scratching the side of her nose.

Chloe dismisses the apology with a quick shake of her head and continues. "But...okay, I'm going to be honest with you. Okay?"

Something (everything) about that makes Beca's stomach drop, and suddenly she doesn't feel so encouraged or positive. She nods sharply.

"Bec…" Her face has softened, her brilliant grin settling into a small, quiet smile. "I've wanted to kiss you for a long time."

Beca chokes on her own breath, sending herself into a spectacularly well-timed and mood-disrupting coughing fit that has Chloe half-sitting up, asking if she can breathe and has Beca's eyes watering. "Sorry," she finally gasps.

Chloe starts to lie down again, face still a little wary. "You're okay now?"

She nods, feeling like an idiot for ruining what felt like was going to be a really nice moment. Damn her awkwardness - damn it all to hell. "Sorry," she repeats. "You were saying?"

Chloe's jaw slides to the side, pulling a face that Beca knows is one of Chloe's few I-feel-awkward faces.

"I'm sorry, please. Just start over."

It's Chloe's turn to nod, and she tries it again. "Okay. I've...wanted to kiss you for a really long time."

Beca manages to not choke this time. "You have?"

"Yes. Is that weird? Are you weirded out?"

"Well, if you'd told me that yesterday, out of the blue….maybe. Now? No." She sees Chloe relaxing again, and it's a welcome sight.

"Why not now?"

"Because…" Beca stops herself to take a breath as she uncrosses her legs stretch out her right and fold the other so her left foot presses into her right thigh to create enough room to push herself forward, until her shin presses against the bottom of the couch. It's only a few inches, but she's close enough to smell Chloe's moisturizer again, and she struggles to keep her voice steady. "Because...I've wanted to, too." She sees Chloe's eyes light up. "I just didn't realize it. I guess. Or...I was wilfully ignoring it. Maybe. I don't know."

"It's okay if you don't know," Chloe offers, and Beca smiles, because of course Chloe's comforting her along every step down this new road. "So, it wasn't an accident," Chloe adds, the corner of her mouth threatening another smirk.

Beca grimaces playfully, feeling her anxiety start peeling away to be replaced with bubbly nerves. "Nooooo, not really."

"Do you still want to?"

"Want to what?"

"You said you've wanted to kiss me. And now you have. Do you still want to?"

Beca's gaze slips to Chloe's lips and when she pulls it back up to Chloe's eyes, she knows she's busted because Chloe winks at her - _the audacity!_ \- and she feels her heart race, because she's pretty sure if she says 'yes,' she'll get exactly what she wants. And she's still scared of what this means for them, that everything is about to change. They're at a fork in the road, about to take the one less traveled by, and it _will_ make all the difference. She licks her lips nervously and Chloe seems to shift a little forward at the action, making her heart pound that much harder.

"What does it mean if I say yes?" she asks, voice barely above a whisper.

"Well…" Chloe starts, reaching out to brush a stray lock of hair away from Beca's eyes to tuck it behind her ear. "It means that you want to kiss me. And I want to kiss you. So, we'll probably kiss."

Somehow, Beca manages to roll her eyes at the super obvious answer. Despite her internal snark, her body reacts to the looming probability, and she suddenly feels tingly all over. "You know that's not what I meant."

Chloe's shifted further forward, she notices, and she's slowly propping herself up on her elbow so she's not looking at Beca sideways anymore. "It doesn't have to mean anything."

She's suddenly offended. "It doesn't mean anything?"

"You know that's not what I meant," Chloe says, parroting Beca's recent tone quite accurately. It makes Beca relax. "It means that we can wait and see what happens. We don't have to have everything figured out this very second."

"I guess you're right."

"Of course I'm right. I have twice as much college education as you."

Beca laughs, and is surprised to notice that her nerves have joined her anxiety somewhere behind her, and she's been left with a warm glowy feeling everywhere. She's suddenly struck with the thought that there's literally no reason to not be kissing Chloe right now. She wants to kiss Beca. Beca wants to kiss her. And yet, they're just staring at each other, cracking wise.

"I'm going to kiss you," she says, feeling a little weird about announcing it, but it was out before she had a chance to stop it. But Chloe seems to like it, eyes getting somehow even brighter, and Beca can see a touch of pink start to invade her cheeks.

Chloe doesn't move; she just waits, looking at Beca as she starts to lean forward. Her eyes flicker to Beca's lips, and it stirs up the butterflies that live within the warm glowy feeling which use their wings to lift Beca's hand out of her lap and reach out until her fingers skate over Chloe's cheek and past her ear and into her hair.

She hears Chloe's breath catch the moment before their lips touch, and then she can't hear anything over the roar of her pulse.

When she had quite literally stolen a kiss earlier that day, it had been quick, and chaste, and a little off-target. A kiss, but not really.

 _This_ was a kiss. She feels Chloe start to lean into it, pressing a little more firmly, and Beca has the distinct impression that no other set of lips she's kissed are as soft or as perfect as Chloe's. The roar finally starts to die down and she can hear Chloe now, and the shaky breaths she's taking, and Beca pulls back for the briefest of moments so they can each take a proper breath before she moves in again, this time with more purpose. More ardor. She feels Chloe's hand on her shoulder, and then it's sliding up until fingertips skitter along her neck where they're taking hold at the nape and she can't stop the breathy sigh that forces her lips apart.

The action isn't lost on Chloe, and Beca feels the warm, wet softness of a tongue graze the edge of her upper lip. It makes her whimper, which Chloe thankfully interprets as permission because Beca isn't sure she could speak if posed with an actual, verbal question.

She feels the softness seek out her own, and she lifts her tongue to meet it. She's also not sure if she's ever felt heat shoot through her quite as quickly as it is now. But the way Chloe's tongue is dancing with hers is not something she's ever experienced. When it reaches particularly deeply, a moan escapes her and she hears Chloe respond a second later and feels the hand tighten on the back of her neck.

She's moving before she even comprehends she was being pulled, and suddenly she's climbing onto the couch, one knee wedged along Chloe's hip, the other dangerously close to the edge to be completely trustworthy in its stability. Her left hand is still tangled in Chloe's hair, but her right is pressing against the arm of the couch to support herself.

And it's the moment she feels Chloe's hands run down her back and around her waist until she gets tugged by her belt loops to stop supporting herself and lie against the redhead completely that Beca registers they're absolutely devouring each other's kiss.

Sounds are escaping Chloe between and through their kisses, and they tell her that Chloe is quite fine with it.

A hand finds her backside and pulls, making her hips roll against Chloe's, and Beca finally pulls away from Chloe's mouth long enough to make Chloe's eyes flutter open in confusion.

Beca has enough time to take in her features - the flush in her cheeks that spreads all the way to the tips of her ears, the way her everbright eyes are almost black, the way her pink lips are red and well-used, the way her hair is messy.

"What?" Chloe finally asks, and her voice is so husky and low that it almost makes Beca moan.

"I…" she starts, but she's interrupted by the doorbell. They both jump at the sudden intrusion that, to Beca, is as loud as a gunshot. "I...am going to answer the door." She steals another quick kiss, taking a great deal of pleasure not only in the kiss itself, but that she has the freedom to do so, and carefully crawls off Chloe to accept the pizza delivery. She takes it to the kitchen, and sees Chloe still on the couch, still looking every bit like she's been properly kissed.

"You what?" Chloe finally asks, starting to push herself to her feet.

Beca shakes her head. She knows what she was going to say, but the moment is gone, and saying it over a ham and pineapple pizza is not the place she wants to revisit it.

"I'll tell you tonight. It got warm in here - will you turn up the A/C?"

Chloe frowns a little but crosses the room to the thermostat to punch a few buttons. "My room is going to be an icebox."

"I know. But mine won't be."


	3. Chapter 3

"Whaddya say, Goldilocks?"

"Goldilocks?" Chloe says around the electric toothbrush presently shoved in her mouth.

Beca's in the doorway behind her, and they look at each other via the mirror. "Your room's too cold. The rest of the house is too hot. Mine should be just right."

Chloe smiles and they both laugh at the toothpaste froth that drips from her lip as a result, and the laughing only makes it worse until she has to stop brushing and wipe off her face and start over.

"Tone down the sex appeal, Chlo. We'll never make it out of the bathroom."

Chloe shoos her away with her hand. "Get out!"

The door closes in Beca's face, and she can still hear laughter on the other side, accompanied by the buzz of Chloe's toothbrush. She returns to her bedroom where she'd just changed into shorts and a tank top.

And maybe her cutest pair of underwear.

She's not trying to be presumptuous - _she's not_ \- but at the very least, she's sure Chloe will be in her bed tonight as she is most nights, and she'd most certainly like to visit second base. Maybe third.

She's not opposed to a home run.

Not that she's being presumptuous.

She spares a thought toward wishing she had decided to shave her legs that morning. But it's too late for that now. And it's not like Chloe's never witnessed her in worse states of care.

She's filled with the urge to clean her room, but there's not time for that because she hears the toilet flushing, so she settles for scooping up the three days' worth of clothes from the floor and tossing them toward her closet. So they're in a different place on the floor. Consolidated.

"Be there in a sec!" drifts in from the hallway and she sees the light in Chloe's room turn on, followed by a comment about how chilly it is. Drawers open and close and Chloe's closet door screeches, and Beca realizes she's just standing in the middle of her room staring at the doorway.

Which is not at _all_ awkward.

So she turns on her reading lamp and turns off the overhead light and crawls into bed, telling the part of her brain responsible for anxiety, whatever it's called, to calm the fuck down and that this is a night like any other night.

 _Right._

"Hey, sorry." Chloe shows up in a teal camisole and teal and gray plaid shorts that may or may not have been matched intentionally (Beca thinks they probably were). She wonders how many different pieces of clothing Chloe owns that are a shade of blue, because her supply seems endless. Every single one brings out her already stunning eyes in a way Beca is sure must be illegal in at least fourteen states. "Ooh, yeah, your room is way better," Chloe says with a shimmy of her shoulders.

And just like that, the anxiety shuts up and the warm glowy returns, and Beca scoots over in an invitation that Chloe accepts. She slides under Beca's sheet and settles on her side to face Beca, like she does every night, for their pre-sleep chat.

"Did you really get a speeding ticket today?" Chloe asks.

Beca groans. "I did. I can't believe it."

"On the way there or back?"

"On my way home."

"Why were you speeding?" She sees Chloe start to smile.

Beca gives a nonchalant shake of her head. "No reason." She can see Chloe's hand moving in her periphery until it disappears into the sheets, but Beca keeps her eyes trained on Chloe's face.

The hand shows up a few seconds later resting along the bare skin of her thigh, just below the hem of her shorts, and she swallows thickly.

"No reason?" Chloe repeats, clearly not fooled.

"Nope."

The resting hand starts to move, just slightly, not much more than shifting from a palm flat against her to individual fingers drawing small circles.

"Maybe you were excited to get home?"

Beca scrunches her nose, making a face. "Why would I be excited to get home?"

Chloe hums thoughtfully and swirling fingertips drift lower, to the back of Beca's knee, and she has to fight to not jerk herself away from the tickling sensation. Thankfully it passes quickly and instead it feels nice. _Really_ nice.

"Maybe because," Chloe pauses to wet her lips, and Beca can't tear her eyes away them after that. "You couldn't wait to kiss me again."

She tries and fails pretty spectacularly to meet Chloe's eyes. "Conspiracy theorist." She also fails to stop her hips from pulling her closer to Chloe when the swirling fingers work their way higher, until they're dancing along the waistband of her shorts and slipping under the edge of her tank.

"Maybe," Chloe says thoughtfully, and Beca still can't get her eyes off her mouth. "But it's so... _satisfying_ when I'm right."

Beca is starting to lose the will to keep up the banter. She needs those lips on hers again. Pronto dente. "Hiit the light?" she manages to ask. It's always Chloe's job to turn off the lamp.

* * *

"Room still just right, Goldilocks?"

Beca runs her fingers through distinctly non-golden locks and feels the tickling patterns against her stomach pause. She can't see Chloe, not her face, anyway, because she's using Beca's chest as a pillow. What she _can_ see are the messy but somehow still perfect waves of red that create a striking contrast where it rests against both their bodies. She can see Chloe's perfectly smooth back and the way the muscles rest and move with her quiet breaths, and her eyes follow the line of her spine down until it starts to curve, where it disappears under the sheet they're sharing. If she lifts her head a little, she can see the hand that's idly caressing her. But it's more fun to not know where its journey will lead next. It's taken her to some pretty spectacular places recently.

She can feel the side of Chloe's face that's pressed against her ribs move, and she knows she's smiling.

"Oh. Yes. It's perfect. Thanks for having me."

Beca smiles at the formality of the statement. It's not untrue, however; Beca had very much _had_ Chloe tonight. More than once, in fact. "My pleasure."

Chloe lifts her head at that and scoots back enough to be able to look at Beca. "Oh, the _pleasure_ was all mine," she says with a waggle of eyebrows.

"I beg to differ." Beca bites her lip as soon as the words are out, because she knows she lobbed that to Chloe. Slow pitch. Underhand.

"Well, you certainly know how to beg." And she knocks it out of the park. Home run.

Beca jostles her with the arm that's still around her shoulders. "You. Shut up."

"Shutting up? Now _that's_ something you're no good at. In certain situations."

"Oh my God," Beca says, laughing and feeling her face warm a bit. "As if _you_ were so quiet."

Chloe grins down at her, and Beca's confident she never wants to take off her X-Ray/Technicolor vision glasses. "It wasn't a criticism. I'm taking a great deal of pride in it."

Beca feels herself blush harder and she rolls to her right, into Chloe, until her face is hiding in her shoulder and their legs are tangled (again). "Shh."

Chloe laughs and reels her in closer, rocking back and forth playfully.

And Beca wonders how it's possible for something like this to feel so natural, so right. It was unlike everything she knew about herself to be able to strip of her barriers, figurative and otherwise, without any hesitation. She hadn't even thought about it. They ate their pizza. They washed up for bed. They changed into pajamas. Chloe came to Beca's room like basically every night prior. They talked and Chloe turned off the lamp and they said, 'goodnight.'

But instead of turning to face the wall to sleep like usual, Beca moved to settle over Chloe and bring their lips back together, picking up exactly where they had left off on the couch.

It was like any other step of their routine. Not that there was _anything_ routine about it. But that's how natural and easy it felt.

It just _was_.

In a perfect metaphor for this recap of events, one second Chloe is snuggling Beca and rocking her, and the next Beca finds herself pinned on her back, staring up at brilliant blue eyes that seem to be hinting that it's still not quite bedtime, even though her last glance at the clock told her it was well past two o'clock in the morning and Chloe has class at nine o'clock.

"Insatiable," Beca teases. She'd have liked to accompany the comment with a tickle to Chloe's stomach or something akin, but her arms are very much incapacitated, pressed into the bed on either side of her head and held down with a fair amount of pressure. She hears herself squeak when lips connect with her neck, and she feels like maybe she should be embarrassed about it, but she can't redirect the necessary energy to do it. And she has no desire to try.

"You do realize," rumbles against her neck, "I've been waiting for this for years."

Beca pushes her shoulders back and gives a jerk of her chin, preening best she can in her current position. "Oh really? _Years_?"

She feels her wrists set free and warm hands drag down her arms as Chloe slips lower. "One or two," Chloe says between the wet kisses she's pressing down Beca's chest. "Or four."

"You flatter me." She drops her freed hands to Chloe's back, arching her fingers so her nails drag up her back as she moves backward.

"Don't act like you haven't felt the same way," tickles her stomach.

Beca sucks in her tummy, away from the tickles that keep coming from breath and lips and that gorgeous red hair, and she has a flash of a memory of their interruption earlier in the night. That she was very much intending to tell Chloe something before the doorbell rang. She catches Chloe under her arms before she's out of reach and gives a tug to get her to return.

"But…" Chloe says as she crawls up, pouting a little.

"I wanna tell you something."

"Oh!" Chloe smiles brilliantly at first, but it quickly fades to a soft, gentle smile. "Okay."

Beca looks up at her, words on the tip of her tongue. She thinks back through the previous times she's said it. It was always a grand to-do, with worry about whether or not they'll say it back, or she's been the one trying to decide if she can say it back. It's always been nervous and shaky and worrisome. But it's not now.

Something about this time is special. She knows it. Feels it. She reaches up and brushes the curtain of hair away from the right side of Chloe's face so she can see her better, hovering above. She holds it there, fingers combed in, thumb brushing back and forth against Chloe's cheek.

"I love you."

What's interesting about this particular instance, she notes, is that she's told Chloe she loves her innumerable times. Over text. In passing as they come and go from the house. Before leaving for winter or summer breaks. After winning competitions.

It's different now. It's the same, but different. They're different. They're on their new path, the one they've never taken. The language is different along this one.

Chloe's eyes slip closed and she turns her head to press her lips to the soft skin of Beca's forearm. She holds her lips there, and Beca can see the fluttering of her eyelashes and the way the corner of her eye crinkles a little. When she turns back and opens her eyes, Beca can see that they're wet, shining with unshed tears.

"I've been waiting so long to hear you say that," she says, and Beca can hear a tremble in Chloe's voice. A teardrop finally makes its way past her long eyelashes and Beca catches it with her thumb to brush it away from her face. She knows Chloe knows it's different now, too. She's heard Beca say it a thousand times. But never like this.

Beca trails her free hand down Chloe's arm. "Sorry it took me awhile. Better late than never, right?"

Chloe sniffles and laughs, and nods furiously as she drops down to kiss Beca. They simply kiss, nothing more. The image of an envelope with a lipstick imprint zips through Beca's mind, and she smiles internally. Chloe pulls back but stays close. She nudges Beca's nose with her own to get Beca to open her eyes, and when she does, Beca sees that the tears are gone.

"I love you, too."

Sealed with a kiss indeed.


End file.
